Scott Manley - 2025-09-02
The Electric Arc Shock Tunnel (EAST) at NASA Ames can generate hypervelocity shockwaves in test atmospheres to understand what happens during atmospheric entry. This system uses a capacitor bank that stored up to 1.25MegaJoules to drive a shockwave in a test gas then observe the light emitted. This is essential to determining the radiative heating that will be experienced during atmospheric entry, and the facility at NASA Ames is the only one in the world that can even get close to the conditions experienced by probes to the gas giants. Follow me on Twitter for more updates: https://twitter.com/DJSnM I have a discord server where I regularly turn up: https://discord.gg/zStmKbM If you really like what I do you can support me directly through Patreon https://www.patreon.com/scottmanley
Waiting for electroboom to comment lol
AAOOOWWW!!
I want to see his diy heated chair upgraded to 1.25MJ capacitor power source. No more waiting in a cold chair.
I wonder if those cables jump around like a pit of rattle snakes from the magnetic flux?
No
@xephael3485what do you mean no. I would imagine they do
I dont imagine they do, likely just because maintaince would be hell, But for how short of a burst it goes through, it likely doesn't do "much"
I’d be curious to know if that much flux at such a small timeframe would be able to do something. But then again I have no anecdotal experience with 1.25MJ….
Probably some kind of faraday cage system
When I was working at Aerospatiale in Cannes, we developed the Huygens probe which flew piggyback on US Cassini spacecraft. Aerospatiale got the contract because of its knowledge of reentry bodies of balistic missiles. The female engineer in charge of the modeling of the reentry was in a mission analysis team under my supervision, and she had to deal with uncertainties on Titan's atmosphere composition . One important parameter was the traces of argon in Titan atmosphere which are under 1%, but not well known at the time. She was eager to have more measurements by astronomers, because a tiny fraction of more argon could double the aero-thermodynamic fluxes at reentry. She finally got more accurate data, and her analysis was perfect, Huygens entered Titan atmosphere safely, and sent back the images.
I'd never have guessed that such a small change could make such a huge difference. Is it that argon emits at some particularly unfortunate wavelength or something?
Thank you 😊
Tranz or bio?
@2nostromowym ... Transformer or Decepticon ?😂 Doesn't matter
Huygens is still one of my favourite feats of space exploration ever achieved. Great to hear about the work that went into it.
"Even with a microsecond shutter, the shock would move 7mm between frames"
And that's why the study of how to get data out of physics experiments is such a fascinating area of study for me, it all happens so fast that even computer systems and sensors that are on the bleeding edge of the state of the art leave the scientists still wanting more data at a faster rate. Things in these experiments happen really fast or they don't happen at all, and that makes it very challenging to get the data out even if you know how to briefly manifest a given physical phenomena.
Wouldn’t that be 7 meters? 7km/s divided by 1000, 7m?
There is one video on how they measured the propagation of a nuclear explosion from inside the warhead itself.
I think from Curios Droid.
@blogsfred3187 microsecond is 1/1000000, you are thinking about miliseconds
I love this channel! I just never know what kind of amazing stuff is in store to learn about each time I click. All I do know, there will always be something somewhere Scott says that absolutely blows my mind.
Is there a name for that field of study? How to get the data out of experiments in a valid and sufficient manner?
Love the "Stolen from east facility" @7:35
... and The Fonz sticker at @4:03
you can just imagine the tech guy getting frustrated with his clip-board repeatedly going walkies and finally writing that on the new one!
@15:00 the picture on the tube
That capacitor bank is terrifying
Bare buss bars like those always make me quesey. You can't tell if they'll kill you.
The capacity of the capacitors is captivating and categorically capitulating for the charged cathodic quartz crystal components
Look up "ATLAS-I (better known as TRESTLE)"
It's only 30 kilovolts If they made one today they could easily make it a 100 kilovolts
would make a killer coin crusher
Oh ow. Applied Science guy spotted in the background.
"Today on Applied Science we're making Tholins in a shockwave tunnel, and look at them using my mass spectrometer and electron microscope."
@2:31? I thought that that was Ben the Applied Science guy.
@agenthambo Me too!
Whoa wait, is it really, I wonder?
Half hoped Electroboom to pop his head up playing with those capacitors or too dangerous for him! Bonkers for 1960.
They do short a tiny wire 😂
1.25 megajoules is about half of the energy needed to run a typical washing machine cycle, or about one hundredth of the energy stored in a gallon of gasoline!
But releasing it in a tiny fraction of a second gives an enormous energy and power density!
Awesome perspective!
Also about the energy to bring a gallon / 4 liters of water from room temperature to boiling. Not wildly much _energy_, but in the short time of discharge makes it crazy high _power_.
@I_Am_Your_Problem dude, there's something wrong with you, but you'll never know what it is.
I meant energy density and power density. Energy is always conserved.
@I_Am_Your_Problem This comment is a nice reminder that reading comprehension should be prioritized in schools.
"I Am Your Problem" is a bot.
The engineering behind the rupture disk is massive
@4:00 That fonz picture... a meme before there was memes
It's not a meme. It's a repair manual
big red dot, "fonz me here" text...that is a fully practical label with some humor added
0:10 open source 😅
I like this presentation because it showcases the "hardhat engineering" for facilities that do real work. Unlike posh clean offices of computer screens, here we see a jumbos of cables, plumbing, and other tedious hardware. In order to get real world data, it takes all this stuff and the people knowing how to make it work. We also see there are so many pieces in this food chain if any part is missing, then none of this will work. Of course you can over design the spacecraft but as Scott pointed out if knowing what the margins need to be, then can have more instruments on the spacecraft.
This shows the other element of NASA that is not glamorous, gets very little media coverage. It takes money, time, and patience in order to get real world data. Unfortunately I feel all this at risk with mischief conducted by those at NASA HQ. Then they will wonder why does it take so long to get anything done (as in if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man or a woman on the moon?).
The physics of very fast rise time power spikes in buss bars is kinda interesting.
48 km/second is about
107366 mph is about
mach 141
That’s incomprehensible numbers just wow! 😂
At what temperature?
Parker Solar Probe: 430,000 mph.
Using mach without providing the relevant gas parameters is inaccurate. Mach number depends on specific heat capacity (volumetric and barometric), molar mass, and temperature. Especially when we're talking about extreme conditions like this, all of those are highly variable.
That "FONZ ME HERE" would seem to indicate the specific spot where occasional percussive maintenance is required. Love it.
I love how none of the dangerous components are at any time shielded. Perfect experimental physics.
Can't wait for AlphaPhoenix and AppliedScience to replicate this in their garages now that they've seen it up close!
I've been waiting for Alpha Phoenix to do this too capacitors have gotten Much more potent in the past 80 years
@Wheezs The 1960s are not 80 years ago from 2025...
1:53 Hammilton Morris is in the background disassembling the pipe to get at the xenon.
This video highlights the fact that without welders modern society wouldn't exist...
As someone who has welded that type of equipment, the big stuff is annoying but the small parts are the easiest to make expensive mistakes on, and there are loads of small parts. Cheers Scott, Great as always.
what if it's tiny details ina big part? I remember reading about welding the Saturn V tanks.
Hi, can you please explain what those "dashed" weld seams are about? On the big section at the end of the bigger apparatus (I think called it the wind tunnel section?) the tube manufactured from sheet metal seems to have one continuous weld seam along its length. But everything else attached to the outside is welded to it in a sort of "dashed" or alternating way. Why is it done like this, and how are the contents inside sealed off? Is there a second, but continuous weld seam on the inside of the tube? Cheers
@argh1312 This is for ease of testing of the inner weld and to avoid forming a sealed cavity. One way you can test vacuum chamber for tightness is to to connect a sensitive gas detector (mass-spectrometer) and then evacuate the whole system. You then blow Helium at various points and check when mass-spectrometer shows rise in Helium inside - if it does you found a leak. For this you need the ability to blow Helium at every weld, so they make the outside weld with gaps for easy access. They also make notches in the connector flanges so you can blow Helium there to test the seal.
@argh1312 You cant fully weld the outside in case of trapping air. To create a vacuum, you need to loose all the air inside. If some were trapped within the seam, the vacuum would never be reached as it kept finding a trickle of atmosphere and you would spend forever finding the leak.
@volodya5 Thanks for that explanation! So do I understand correctly that there are inner welds to seal the chamber off, and the outer, gapped welds are for added structural integrity? And yes I was already talking about those flanges. Is it done the same way along the length of the tube as well?
I know a person who was involved in experiments like these about 35 years back in a place called LANL. The scientific research has improved due to modern computing technology. The physics will never change.
Los Alamos:) I work there now. I grew up in Albuquerque, some very neat stuff over there.
4:04 I love those old school "jewel" lights for some reason! Probably from vintage guitar amplifiers that have jewel light power indicators.
Was very excited to see your "Air Explode Using Electricity" vid. As a young dude exploring the West Coast in 1969 I took a temp job painting walls in a big workspace in a company called Energy Systems, Inc. They were building these exact huge capacitor banks! All I was told was they were aerospace related. Off to one side was a device that looked like a 50's Frankenstein movie prop. It was a tower about 20' tall with big aluminum "donuts", cylinders of plexiglas and a big arc gap in the middle. It was called a "crowbar" and was used to discharge the capacitor banks. Your YouTube was a flashback for me. Love your videos.
Loving the new cadence! Good to have more quality tech content. Thank you.
An excellent example of how apparently boring science turns out to be very fascinating and important.
Thank you, Scott, for the very detailed and understandable explanations.
That setup is almost as crazy as one of Photonic Inductions videos.
Here's a scientific paper they made earlier...😂😂 love the cooking show vibes.
Hey! We did the boring, finish turning, and power honing off thus exact tube at our shop! You can see it in our company tour video for fluid tech hydraulics on our big lathe. Super cool project. The finish we were subcontractors did is fantastic, great people. I airways wondered what is actually we used for
My father in law was a shock tube physicist back at Los Alamos in the 50s. He went on to work with underground nuclear tests. I always thought of their crazy tunnels and blast doors as a giant shock tube. Sometimes they actually worked.
Damn, Scott Manley, Alpha Phoenix and Ben Krasnow in one place? Nerdvana!
"Why does NASA use this capacitor for?" Nice.
2:57 Tea-Pot lid pretending to be a heat shield!
Stop laughing, it works. 😢😂
Incredible indepth Walk, though ! I think I speak for everybody when I say I would like more of these in-depth videos from Scott!
Post script ; maybe it would be kind of cool and interesting to see him do like a 1 hour DJ.Set just putting it out there
7:35 - I love how his clipboard says "Stolen from east facility" 😁
Terrific presentation of civil servants doing fascinating research for public good.
Fun to watch this. My granddaughter works for NASA at the Ames facility
Picturing a spacecraft going 60 kps made me do a rough calculation: At that speed, in the duration of a single frame of a movie, it would travel the length of the main span of the Golden Gate Bridge - twice.
Ultimate flashbulb.
A fascinating video about this old Apollo era test-device and to paraphrase Scott, "Fry safe".
This video was genuinely good to show how American taxpayers' money is being spent, and why it is important in an easily understandable way. This video shows how this expenditure, of NASA's, has true practical reasons.
LOLOLOL.
@johnblair8146 If you think it isn't worth it, you can use the heat shields from Temu.
@johnblair8146 dont need a period there kid
Meh, I want to see what all the "missing" Pentagon money goes towards
@blarbdude that has zero to do with NASA. And NASA's budget is a rounding error compared to the Pentagon's.
Is that Joe Barnard at 10:00, trying to figure out how to make one of these things on his lathe?
That bow wave was so nicely captured
It’s pretty bonkers that 70ish-year-old equipment is still in service on cutting-edge research.
...wonder why - has this type of tech maybe not advanced affordably ...or something else?
'If it ain't broke, don't fix it ...'
@kevinim300 There isn't much to advance on a big bank of capacitors and a welded metal tube. I'm sure then sensors look absolutely nothing like the originals though.
Me doing studs capacitive discharge welding today at the shop.
Powerful enough to weld a 1/4-20 steel stud in 0.004 seconds.
17:08 Now that's a good thesis.
1:04 "Great Scott!"
All those old school Jewel lights are awesome!
You can't use it until you've collected all the keys very much sounds like a video game... but is obv more for safety reasons learned the hardest way. 💀
Quite similar to the security procedures around nuclear missiles. Just the focus is reversed. With an ICBM you need to a absolutely, 100% certain that the launch is authorized because you're potentially turning everyone outside the launch facility into a greasy smut. With the electric shock tube system you have to be absolutely, 100% certain that the "launch" is authorized because you're potentially turning anyone still inside the lab or the capacitor room into a greasy smut.
I'd be curious to see video of the capacitor bank during a discharge. Even though I suspect that it would be impressively unspectacular. Only in Hollywood do massive capacitor banks emit curling electric arcs. Real high voltage is far less visually spectacular. When it's working as intended, that is.
@scottmanley - 2025-09-02
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@gracebromfield9070 - 2025-09-05
Hey Scott, you should pin your comment so it's at the top.
@Stanton_High - 2025-09-06
WHAT does NASA use this capacitor for?
@Voting-does-nothing - 2025-09-06
Hay scott how do you expect people to take you seriously when you follow silly tiktok trends in speech you clown? 🤣🤣🤣
It's better not "bedder" .......... ....
MuppeTTTT
@thespanishinquisition6777 - 2025-09-13
Support what? You not proofreading your thumbnail pictures?
@Anvilshock - 2025-09-13
Beggar.